Hacker group Anonymous claims responsibility for government website takeover

Hacker group Anonymous claimed to have taken over the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in protest of attempts by federal officials to prosecute open-data campaigner Aaron Swartz.

Swartz killed himself earlier this month. And in a YouTube video Anonymous said he did so because he was faced with "an impossible choice" after federal prosecutors charged him in connection with copying academic journal articles from an online repository.

The video was reportedly posted on the website of the sentencing commission, but as of Saturday morning the site appeared to be offline.

In the nine-minute video, members of Anonymous, a loose affiliation of hackers, said they were ready to engage the U.S. Department of Justice in "a game in which the only winning move is not to play."

The video included clips from the 1983 movie War Games, in which a hacker inadvertendly triggers a nuclear war.

The group claims to have a number of encrypted files that could be embarrassing to the Justice Department and said it will release details of how to access them if the government does not reform its approach to sentencing criminals.

Richard McFeely, a senior FBI official who handles cybercrime, said in a statement that the bureau knew of the Anonymous attack as soon as it happened and has launched a criminal investigation.

"We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network," he said.